USA - Steven Cohen, Professor of Russian studies at Princeton and NYU was beside himself tonight, in sheer disbelief over the witch hunt of gigantic nothing-burgers that are being used to assault the Presidency of Donald Trump.
USA - The wolves are circling, and members of Congress from both political parties are now openly talking about impeaching President Trump. On Wednesday, speculation of a looming Trump impeachment sent stocks plunging. The Dow was down 372 points, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both experienced their largest declines in eight months.
USA - Calls are growing for President Trump to “clean house” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, after a series of leaks aimed at embarrassing and undermining the president sprung from the White House this week. A White House source estimates more than 60 percent of employees at the National Security Council are not Trump administration appointees, but career officials who were appointed to the White House from other agencies under the Obama administration. The source said there are “whole departments” at the NSC with only one Trump appointee. “I think the lesson here is that these things are going to continue to happen until the Trump White House does a serious housecleaning,” said Fred Fleitz, a former CIA and Bush administration official.
USA - The goal is audacious enough, but promises of a record spending increase makes it even more complicated. The Pentagon will spend the next several months gearing up for a mission so complicated that many officials doubt it can be pulled off, an undertaking so immense that the military hasn’t once dared to try it before.
USA - The share of Americans who believe that the Bible is “to be taken literally” has reached a record low, according to a new Gallup Poll. Less than one in four Americans — 24 percent — believe that the Bible is literal “word for word,” the lowest percentage in 40 years, Gallup reported Tuesday. Just 26 percent of respondents called the Bible “a book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man.” Gallup noted that this was the the first time in the poll’s history that the view that the Bible is a book of fables surpassed the view that the Bible is literally true.
VATICAN - In a telegram congratulating the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, for his investiture, Pope Francis took the occasion to remind the lapsed Catholic president of his country’s “Christian tradition.”
MIDDLE EAST - The Gulf states have compiled a proposal to take unprecedented steps toward normalization with Israel if the Netanyahu government in turn makes gestures to the Palestinians, such as freezing settlement construction in parts of the West Bank and easing trade restrictions in the Gaza Strip, according to the Wall Street Journal.
USA - Imminent Alert: Warning of a credible, specific and impending terrorism threat against the United States. Since 2015, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used this Bulletin to highlight the continuing threat from homegrown terrorists, many of whom are inspired online to violence by foreign terrorist organizations. The United States is engaged in a generational fight against terrorists, who seek to attack the American people, our country, and our way of life. An informed, vigilant, and engaged public remains one of our greatest assets to identify potential homegrown terrorists and prevent attacks.
EUROPE - An AFP article titled “Cyber Kid Stuns Experts Showing Toys Can Be ‘Weapons'” has gone viral. 11-year-old Reuben Paul took the stage at the World Forum cyber security conference in The Hague. “From airplanes to automobiles, from smart phones to smart homes, anything or any toy can be part of the Internet of Things (IOT),” he said, a small figure pacing the huge stage at the World Forum in The Hague.
USA - Caitlyn Jenner has perfected the art of cashing in on each step of gender transition. A few short weeks before the release of his new book, Jenner acknowledges the boys are now gone. Adios to his life-long companions in gender reassignment surgery (known as bottom surgery).
ISRAEL - In a bitter diplomatic incident, a senior member of the US delegation making preparations for Donald Trump’s visit to Israel next week angrily rejected a request that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accompany the president when he visits the Western Wall, and then sniped at his Israeli counterparts that the Western Wall is “not your territory. It’s part of the West Bank,” Israeli television reported on Monday night. An official at the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed the Channel 2 report, telling the Times of Israel that Israeli officials were “shocked” by the comments and have asked the Trump administration about the incident. The official said that Netanyahu is certain that the comment does not reflect President Trump’s policy.
USA - President Donald Trump promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, but a recent diplomatic spat showed why it has been so hard for him to do so. On Monday, the Times of Israel reported that talks between US and Israeli officials coordinating Trump’s upcoming visit to the Western Wall — the holiest site in Judaism — stumbled when a “senior American official” said that the area was not within Israeli control and was part of the West Bank. The name of the official has since been reported as David Berns, a career bureaucrat at State.
ITALY - Supervolcano Campi Flegrei is at a critical stage and scientists have warned that European authorities need to be ready – as experts fear the lives of more than 360,000 people across Europe could be at risk. Campi Flegrei, located around 11 miles (18 kilometres) southwest of Naples, Italy, has not erupted since 1538, but volcano experts believe it could be building up to another devastating eruption. Scientists from the University College London (UCL) and the Vesuvius Observatory in Naples have been studying the patterns of unrest since Campi Flegrei's last eruption more than 500 years ago. They concluded that the volcano may be “closer to an eruption than previously thought” and was instead “approaching a critical stage”.
NORTH KOREA - After months of threatening the US with nuclear war, and just days after a new president took office in South Korea, Kim Jong-Un fired a ballistic missile that landed too close for comfort to Russian territory. The launch took place in the Kusong region located northwest of the capital, Pyongyang, where the North previously test-launched an intermediate-range missile it is believed to be developing. The missile landed in waters 60 miles south of Russia’s Vladivostok region, home of the Russian Pacific Fleet. Kim Dong-yub, an expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said he estimated a standard trajectory firing would give it a range of 3,700 miles, meaning it would be capable of reaching Hawaii.
UK - A north London private school has drawn up plans to introduce gender-neutral uniforms in response to a growing number of pupils questioning their gender identity. Highgate school currently has an option for girls to wear a grey pleated skirt, but the school is consulting on a mix-and-match uniform policy which will not specify a different requirement for boys and girls.